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The kids went back to school in August. I looked forward to the blessed event beginning in early June, a couple of weeks after school let out for the summer. Finally, I am back on schedule and, with one kid in junior high and one kid in high school, I can just imagine the fun they are going to have and all the wonderful things they are going to learn.

We’ve had a lot of extra summer arrivals this year, and not just mosquitoes, either. People are flowing into Alaska from the rest of the United States, and the world, for that matter, like it is the place to be.

My phone died a week into May. I knew it would happen, expected its demise last August under the unwritten rule of planned obsolescence when my two-year contract was up. I started checking out all the new phones when I started getting all the notices that I was eligible for a phone upgrade, and those started coming before my contract expired, in fact.

Happy month of May, the time of year when Persephone, spring goddess of Greek mythology, has managed to hike up from the southern climes to bless our land. This is the month when the Alaska landscape (finally) heralds the promise of spring with the scent of cottonwood buds and the fast transition of the birch trees from bare to light green, exhibiting their full foliage by month’s end. A month of such great change! Sun’s up, school’s out, central heating is turned down or completely off, and the dogs are grilling on the barbecue. Welcome spring!

It’s that time of year again… the days are getting longer, the sounds of birdsongs fill the air, and the stacks of firewood outside convenience store gas stations yield to the breakup season’s new last-minute must-have money maker: windshield washer fluid.

Stop writing checks for studies and plans. Start writing checks for concrete and steel. It is time for the state to build the bridge across Knik Arm. Since the bridge will be owned by the state, the state should use its own money and build it.